Friday, 31 May 2013

THE ARTIST: MR JARED LETO!

For MrJared Leto, leading a double life as a Hollywood film star and lead singer of the platinum-selling rock band Thirty Seconds to Mars - whose new album, Love Lust Faith + Dreams, has just been released - is the most natural thing in the world. His peripatetic, "food stamp-poor" upbringing, as the younger son of a mother who surrounded herself and her two boys with artistic influences, instilled in the Louisiana-born 41-year-old a passion for the arts. "I did grow up in a very creative world," Mr Leto says. "It was the 1970s, the age of the artist and the hippy, and my exposure to that shaped me in a really deep way. I was raised among people who made things to make them, and with the idea that if you're a creative person, then of course you're going to do something creative with your life - whether you're an artist, a performance artist, a potter or a photographer. I had no concept of the word 'fame'; or a notion of success or money. We grew up very poor, so our world wasn't anywhere near that kind of stuff. You have to do what is important to you and protect that."

'There are always going to be people who go, 'F*** that guy, he shouldn't make music, he makes movies.'